Today was a weird day. The need to get some positive cash flow loomed high in my mind. I spent a bit of time speaking with a person who took a job in California that everyone said I would have been perfect for. However, moving to California for that job wouldn’t have been perfect for me. So, I am hoping my discussion was useful and the project goes well.

I also spent a lot of time talking with people around the country about the efforts to help elect Howard Dean DNC Chair. In one message I wrote to various state leaders, I said,

Just as the media didn't present an accurate or positive image of Gov. Dean during the primaries, I don't think it is presenting an accurate or positive image of the DNC. There are a lot of good people in the DNC, both as DNC members as well as staffers in DC. If you can use Gov. Dean's campaign for DNC chair as an opportunity to establish a good working relationship with the DNC members from your state, it will be an added benefit.

Imagine you are the DNC member from your state. How would you want to be contacted? I would want to hear from people that want to get more involved and help the party. I would want to hear from people that wanted to work with me and not give me a lot of grief. If we approach the DNC members this way, I believe everyone wins.

Apparently, this message got forwarded to some other lists, because a State Central person from a different State sent me an email talking about my post on a list I’m not even on saying,

I really appreciate your message to the list re how to talk to DNC members! People who heed your pearls of wisdom will be heard!!

That made me feel good. I also received an email from Gloria Collins, who is the State Central Committeewoman in the 35th senatorial district in Connecticut. She had been wondering how to bring new people into the town committees in that district and was glad that I have been encouraging people in Connecticut to get in touch with the State Central people for their districts. So if you are a registered Democrat from the 35th Senatorial District in Connecticut, which includes the towns of Pomfret, Tolland, Ellington, Stafford, Union, Ashford, Willington, Woodstock, Hampton, Coventry, Chaplin, Eastford and Vernon, then please, get in touch with Gloria about getting more involved.

It seems as if these little things should be obvious, but it also seems that in the world of politics, politeness and working well with others too often gets forgotten.

Away from politics, I spoke with a friend that is dealing with some venture capitalists for some interesting new projects. I hope to have some good meetings about some of this next week. I spent a moment to send an email to him and a few other people that should be talking. They are in complementary businesses and one responded,

I am a very big proponent of creating complementary synergies in business and always like to talk to others about what they are doing, and how we might help one another. I am a firm believer that if you try to help others, that comes back to help you many times over in the future.

I sure hope so.

All of this set an interesting backdrop for a discussion I had this evening. At various jobs that I’ve had, the mantra has been “Failure is not an option”. Yet this evening, I was speaking with a friend at one of the most successful companies of the past several years. He is working on a project to bring artists into the company. He had worked at a research center years before, where the mantra was something like, “if you never fail, you aren't trying crazy enough stuff”. He went on to say, “I would like to see the artist program embrace failure”

So, polite, collaboration that isn’t afraid of failure, that sounds like a winning ticket. Hopefully it will lead to something good for me before I run out of cash.